$300,000 for Community Food Project

How do we make ourselves obsolete? That is the baseline question at The Gardens Project for building a sustainable food movement. Our answer: training community and school gardens to do our job!

This Winter, we are implementing a 3 year intensive garden leadership training program. In the first year, we are recruiting and training 20 gardeners from 10 different gardens. We received a three year Community Food Project grant of $300,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture. This grant will allow us to support family and community food security by building leadership skills and new community gardens and increasing food production and marketing capacity.

In January, we will be initiating a Community and School Garden Coordinator Training which will develop leadership, advocacy, community organizing, and food production and marketing skills to 20-30 gardeners in the Ukiah Area. This training will be expanded to the rest of the county, including Willits and the coast over the second and third years of the grant.

Additionally, we will be hosting food production classes this spring and summer which will be open to the public.

Another important part of the grant will be engaging Head Start families in their new gardens by providing farmers market vouchers to those families who volunteer in their child's school garden – thus helping bring new customers and dollars to our local farmers while increasing access to local, healthy produce!

Mendocino Flavors

Our local Mendocino County Museum in Willits is calling all food enthusiasts and artists (young, old, and in between!) to submit an original piece of art to the museum for an exhibit entitled “Mendocino Flavors.”

Perhaps you are a local gardener and would like to showcase your homegrown veggies through art. Perhaps you are a farmer or forager who would like to share your knowledge about local food. Maybe you love to eat at a certain restaurant in Mendocino County and are inspired by their food to create some art. Perhaps your traditional family meals reflect the foods of Mendocino County.

Be creative! Your impressions and artistic creations, focused on the foods and flavors of Mendocino County, are what the museum would like to see.

The students at Ukiah's Tree of Life Charter School are working on watercolors of their favorite foods! Perhaps painting sounds fun... OR Do you like photographing food or maybe drawing with pastels? How about putting together a collage or mosaic? Any two-dimensional medium will be welcomed.

Check out the Mendocino County Museum website at http://www.mendocinomuseum.org/mendocino-flavors.html to learn more.

Cover Crops!

Cover crops make a great blanket for your empty garden beds during the winter.





Benefits of cover crops include:

• Replacing soil organic matter
• Recycling nutrients
• Supplying nitrogen (only provided by legumes)
• Protecting soil from raindrop impact
• Reducing runoff and erosion
• Protecting water quality
• Suppressing weeds

Common cover crops belong to one of three groups:

• Grains and grass
• Legumes
• Other broad-leaved plants

A few commonly used cover crops are clover, barley, rye, fava beans, winter peas, and buckwheat. Legumes are an especially great cover crop because they supply nitrogen to the soil rather than extracting it.

To learn even more about planting cover crops check out this website.

Get your FOOD ART showcased at the museum!

Mendocino Flavors is the Museum's 2nd annual countywide artwork project.


Mendocino County residents of all ages are invited to enter photos, drawings, paintings, poems, letters, prints, fabrics, and collages conveying a “Favorite Food” to the Mendocino County Museum for a display that will reflect the whole county.


The Mendocino Flavors display will debut at the Museum in January 2012 and then travel countywide. For more information or to find out how to enter click here!

Farmers Night Out on National Food Day!

October 24 marks the first ever National Food Day sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Food Day seeks to bring together parents, schools, health professionals, community members, local officials, and chefs — to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.

Here in Mendocino County, the Gardens Project encouraged local schools and pre-schools in their efforts to promote Food Day. We also hosted a successful Farmer's Night Out dinner at Patrona to celebrate local food and those that grow it!


Farmer's Night Out was a wonderful event with delicious food and engaging conversations. Participants tasted food from the following farms and businesses who kindly donated fresh ingredients or wine to our dinner:

Magruder Ranch, Schat's bakery, Stella Cadente Olive Oil Co., Ocean Harvest Sea Vegetable Co., Green Uprising Farm, Petit Teton, Laughing Frog Farm, Infinite Farm, Cinnamon Bear Farm, Mendocino Organics, Paul Dolan.


This casual event provided an opportunity for residents all over the county to eat together and converse with local farmers while being serenaded by the sweet sounds of Mendo Zone.

Good Times were had by all and we hope to see even more of you at our Farmers Night Out event next year!

Farmers Night Out on National Food Day!

Monday is Farmers Night Out!

Join us in a celebration of local foods and farmers!

Have a delicious local meal, meet local farmers, listen to live music, and support the Gardens Project.
Monday Oct. 24!


Dinner starts at 5pm at Patrona Restaurant and Lounge.
This is not a sit-down event so you can come and go as you please.

Adults: $20 and Farmers eat for FREE.


Reservations preferred: Call 462-9181

For more information click here!

See you there!!